Adventures in Valkurm | Clan of the Angry Monkey (FFXI)

Missing details...

Submitted by mAdBoY on Thu, 07/08/2004 - 19:41.

I chose to let Trix add that part. heh
As far as parties in the dunes...whenever I get an invite (which is normally a blind invite) I always do a search and see what jobs this person has. If they do not have at least a sub, I normally decline the invite to avoid inexperience parties. You're generally in good company if you receive an invite from a person with advanced jobs (SAM, NIN, etc) as they should have an idea of how things work in the dunes. We will get Trix back in the dunes to complete the subjob quest, as it is a MUST in this game. It makes your lower lvl jobs more powerful, and leveling up much easier. And as I just said, some more experienced parties won't invite someone without a sub, expecting them to be very noobish.

As far as the mentor giving you hell, blow off people like that. You give them a title like that and all of a sudden they are l33t and know everything. They're not going to listen to you regardless of what you say, so don't bother.

Sad I missed it!

Submitted by ravenclaw on Tue, 07/13/2004 - 18:34.

Trix is Raptor, right? Heheh, I woulda loved to have seen him fish up a monster! Dang this new job and my stupid hours!

The Dunes

Submitted by sam on Wed, 07/07/2004 - 15:36.

Yeah, I recounted the tail in my journal as well. Heheh....

Actually, that last gob train when we called it a night, I didn't even see them follow our puller. All I know is I was whacking away when all of a sudden I was surrounded by gobs! Admittedly, with so many parties in the area I was lagging pretty badly, but as far as I saw, they just appeared around me ;-)

Also, Val, you forgot the funniest part of that day! When Trix tried to fish in the Dunes. That had to be the funniest thing I've ever seen. No offense to Trix, how could he know? I certainly didn't know at his level, and even tried to fish, but I was advised pretty quickly to stop before I pulled anything up. The chances of him pulling up a monster on his first cast is pretty slim ;-)

Vis Maior's Journeys
http://maior.samhart.net/

Fatal Fishing

Submitted by raprot on Wed, 07/07/2004 - 22:29.

You forgot to mention the insanity that ensued after I pulled up my 'monster'. At first I thought I had caught a really big fish...but when the game says monster, it means monster. Since I was in a party this should have been fine. I had become a surprise 'puller' for the group. The problem was that when I attempted to attack my catch...it was already claimed! By who, I have no idea. So accompanied by the solicitations of "Run!" and "Zone!" from my party-mates, I ran like hell to Selbina (only to overshoot it).

What's even worse was that I had a GM following me the whole way telling me to disengage so that he could kill it. Problem is: How do you disengage from something that isn't even claimed to you??? The GM followed me into Selbina and began to scold me like a young noob. This did not make me like him much more. I proceeded to explain that the crab, after being fished out of the water, was claimed and un-disengage-able. I also pointed out that this must be a problem in the program and promptly left him in Selbina after healing.

All in all it was a fun experience. It was extremely funny once I calmed down. The fish were so beautiful and big it'd have been nice to catch something. I guess Valkrum is the epitome of beauty and the beast. Thankfully I didn't die! I did that later when a Gob train caught me on my way to meet my disgraceful last party of the night.

So Valkrum is really trying my patience and I'm going to take a couple days off from it. I think I overdosed on FFXI this past three day weekend. Nonetheless, I love my San'D digs.

- This is the way the world ends
- Not with a bang but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

Dunes suck

Submitted by sam on Thu, 07/08/2004 - 15:44.

Yeah, the dunes really can suck.

First of all, there's too many damned people. This means getting a party can be hard unless you have certain enviable jobs (like WHM, BLM, PLD, RNG, etc)

Second of all, people there are clueless. Most parties will be bad there as the people learn the ropes of how parties work. This is frustrating the first time around, and can only get more frustrating once you return with an advanced job (because, by then, you know the way parties should work and you are less... tolerant... of n00bs).

Third of all, there are some really nasty things in the Dunes. Some of the Gobs there still can really hurt my 30MNK.

My advice is to duck your head down and rush through it. Get your sub job (at least to 15) and then go on to Qufim. Qufim is still bad, still have people clueless there, but it is much better than the Dunes. After Qufim comes Kazhaam which is really make or break with respect to parties.

I'll admit I did have bad parties after the Dunes, but none of them were ever as bad as ones from the Dunes. So, don't give up, don't discourage. You'll make it.

Oh, and when you come back to the dunes to level up another job, I'd strongly recommend editting your party search comment to say that you are only interested in EXP parties (parties looking for experience not items). This will make subsequent visits to the Dunes much more pleasant.

Vis Maior's Journeys
http://maior.samhart.net/